He’d read her card. He knew who she was. He knew what his uncle had written about her.
Mr. Spalding lowered his voice. “My aunt was clearly not in her right mind when she willed a medieval manuscript to that child.”
“You should go,” Elsa told him, unwilling for him to witness one more moment of the girl’s breakdown.
He opened his mouth, but the murder of crows exploded from the tree and fairly chased him from the garden.
Leaving Tatiana to try to soothe Danielle, Elsa marched back to the mansion in Mr. Spalding’s wake. Heat flared through her. Birdie would be livid if she knew what was going on.
No, Birdie would be heartbroken. Elsa was livid. They’d already known the estate would go to the county. But Spalding and Field were making plans that drastically altered the Petrovics’ lives without even letting Tatiana be part of the conversation. And now they expected them to relocate by the end of the month?
Elsa crossed the drive and entered the vestibule. Piano music drifted from the parlor but ended in a discordant crash at the commanding tone of Mr. Spalding. She stepped into the golden room.
Jane leapt from the chaise lounge. “There you are, Elsa! I was so disappointed not to see you when we arrived this morning. Don’t tell me you were with the gardener and her daughter again.”
Speech fled. Jane couldn’t really have a reason to be jealous of her time.
“Bravo, Jane,” Wesley called from the piano bench. “One might almost believe you’re genuine.”
Releasing Elsa, Jane spun toward her brother with a scowl, then turned a pleading pout upon her father, who stood with arms crossed, blocking the doors to the courtyard. “You see? He provokes for no reason.”
A throat clearing drew Elsa’s attention to a sharp-eyed elderly woman tucked into a velvet armchair. A doily topping the back of the chair made a lacy corona about her white hair. “In my day,” she said, “introductions were customary.” She lifted thin brows at Mr. Spalding, then sent a sideways smile at Elsa, deepening the pleasant lines in her face.
“Mother, this is Miss Reisner, the ornithologist I told you about,” Mr. Spalding muttered. “Miss Reisner, this is my mother. Agnes Spalding. She was my uncle Linus’s sister.”
Elsa’s breath hitched. Could this bombazine-draped woman in mourning be the Agnes that Birdie had written of in her diary? Shock parted her anger, followed by a hope that maybe Agnes could shed some light on ... something. Anything. Schooling her composure, Elsa came forward to shake the woman’s delicate hand. “Mrs. Spalding, it’s so nice to meet you.” She added her sincere condolences.
“Call me Agnes, dear. There’s another Mrs. Spalding, and she hates for us to get confused.”
“Mother isn’t here, Granny,” Jane called on a sigh.
“No, she is not.” Agnes brushed a stray feather from her stiff black skirt. “Even so, I wish to be called Agnes by this smart young woman, so don’t cross me. I’m too old for that.”
“Yes, Granny.” Jane returned to the chaise lounge, where she inspected her cuticles.
“I apologize if I’ve interrupted a family meeting,” Elsa said.
“Oh no.” Wesley closed the lid over the keys and lit up a Chesterfield. “We’re only all here in one room by chance. Normally we’re far more careful. I was here first, by the way.”
“I was looking for Elsa,” Jane said.
“Right.” Wesley turned to Elsa. “And what have you been looking for?” He blew smoke her way.
“Stop this foolishness at once,” Mr. Spalding scolded.
Agnes tsked. The chair’s upholstery shone where it had been crushed from years of handling, and stuffing tufted from a spot where a mouse had chewed through. But the way she presided from it, the armchair may as well have been a throne. “What has you all in a dither, Guy?”
“I told the gardener some news from the county, and her daughter threw a fit.”
Agnes’s keen blue eyes narrowed. “You mean a child reacted strongly to the news that she was about to be homeless? How strange.” Irony dripped from her tone.
“You didn’t see her. This was a tantrum like I’ve never seen.” At least he hadn’t mentioned her friend the crow.
Elsa folded her arms, ready to defend Danielle, but Agnes spoke up first.
“Really? Are you not aware of the royal tantrum thrown in this very room by your own daughter?” She lifted her cane and pointed at the young woman across the room. She swung it toward Elsa and then to a nearby chair in unspoken command.
Elsa sat.
